Title: Against All Better JudgmentFandom: JustifiedCharacters: Raylan/Boyd (PG-13)Summary: This not what smart looks like...Author's Note: My Yuletide story for karaokegal.

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This goes against Raylan's better judgment, but when it comes to sex, Raylan's judgment often flies out the window before he even knows it's missing.

This is Raylan and Boyd on a motel bed, hands up each other's shirts and yanking on each other's belts while Raylan moans and Boyd bites Raylan's jaw and sucks the hollow of his neck. Raylan knows that whatever Boyd might or might not have done these last few months, there are years' worth of things he did do, bad things, and that a U.S. Marshal ought not to be getting friendly with the likes of Boyd Crowder. And yet, here he is, shaking under Boyd's touch, heart pounding while his dick strains inside the rough fabric of his jeans.

Raylan went down this same road with Ava, when he first came back to Harlan. Art flat-out warned him not to sleep with Ava, but Raylan did. Coming back to his motel room and finding her waiting there for him just waltzed Raylan right past his better intentions and straight into her arms. And apart from Art riding him about it later, Raylan didn't much regret it.

Boyd, now… Boyd is altogether different. Raylan isn't sure what Boyd was looking for when he showed up at the motel again, just that Boyd still looked lost and halfway to being destroyed. Raylan had thought Boyd's whole preacher-man routine was just for show, but Boyd's still grieving for the men he lost. Wherever Boyd thought he was leading those men, what happened to them was just tragic. There was no fairness in it, no matter how you looked at it. Raylan couldn't give Boyd answers about faith or God's plan, even on the best of days. All he could offer was an arm around the shoulder and soft words of awkward sympathy. Those reassurances gave way to a hug, and then Boyd was hanging onto Raylan and leaning his head against him like Raylan was the lone rock in a raging river, the last hope he had left in the world.

When Boyd leaned back and all-out kissed him, Raylan wasn't even half surprised.

He should have put a stop to it right then, of course. Adolescent experimentations aside, Raylan wasn't inclined toward men, and also, Boyd. But on the other hand, the fact of it being Boyd might also be why Raylan let things get so out of control.

They weren't close growing up. They knew each other, of course, what with Harlan being a small town and their daddies both running on the wrong side of the law. Boyd's daddy was a damn sight better at being a criminal than Raylan's—up until he got caught—and both boys' mothers prayed right up until the end that their men would see the light and set off on the road to redemption.

Hoping for such a thing was worthless, Raylan thought, given the kind of men Bo and Arlo were. Raylan had always hoped his daddy would wind up in prison, but he'd had no luck with that either. Arlo was such a miserable, useless excuse for a man, it was possible even the police didn't think him worth the bother.

Raylan saw Boyd around when they were younger, of course, and talked to him many a time over the years. After high school, the only decent money around Harlan came from working in the mine, and he and Boyd both signed on. Neither of them lasted at the job, but they forged something together that fell halfway between loyalty and understanding. Raylan left Harlan not much later, and he'd heard Boyd had joined the army.

What Raylan once said he knew about Boyd—that Boyd liked robbing banks and blowing shit up—well, that was true, but it wasn't all. Raylan also knew Boyd was magnetic and unstoppable, and that he could be as aggravating as he was charming. When Boyd focused the intensity of his attention on you, it was hard not to be swayed by it. Half the time, Boyd was so busy flirting with him that Raylan could never be sure whether Boyd meant any of the things that seemed like threats—or hell, whether he meant the flirting either.

And that hug outside the church, when Raylan first came back to Harlan… that hug was real nice. All of that is why Raylan is now rolling around on the bed with Boyd, feverishly touching parts of Boyd he's never even seen before.

What Boyd wants from all this is anyone's guess. Raylan ought to be used to this sort of thing, what with Winona visiting his motel room over and over, taking all he has to give and not committing herself to more than the next few hours.

Maybe all Boyd wants is what's right in front of him, for as long as he can have it. He kisses Raylan like he's waited a lifetime for the chance. He devours Raylan's skin and lifts up against his touch as if Raylan is the only thing still keeping him alive.

Raylan, all lit up like a sparkler on the Fourth of July, cannot begin to say No, not for the need and the heat in Boyd's touch, and not for any of the what-if-maybes that crossed his own mind all those years ago when he and Boyd would sneak off after hours to get drunk together, and Boyd would watch him with his eyes big and full of promise.

This is not what smart looks like, Raylan and Boyd here together winding each other up faster than a runaway train, but when it comes to sex, Raylan has a history of making stupid choices.

This probably isn't the worst of them, at least not yet.

~*~

It's a couple of months later when Raylan finds himself headed to Harlan again, another trip to that godforsaken backwater of a town that just will not let him go. He stops off at a bar near the mine, where Boyd—if he's behaving himself—is likely to be, and if he isn't, well…

Raylan figures he ought to find out, either way.

He steps through the door, and there's Boyd all right, but things aren't exactly the way he expected. Boyd is sitting alone at the bar in his miner's clothes, everyone else just moving around him like he's not even there. Boyd's drinking, but his heart isn't in it. He looks lonelier than he has since that terrible day his flock was killed.

Raylan sees it all clearly, the harsh picture that image paints. Boyd is living the life he and Raylan tried so hard to escape, and he's stuck in it, like there's nothing else left for him.

Raylan wonders if maybe the mistake he made wasn't sleeping with Boyd that day.